Nidd Valley Anamouse

Your Computer

Mary Sargent

A TALE OF MICE, JOYSTICKS AND THINGS Mary Sargent gets to grips with joysticks, trackerballs and mice. Books could be written about joysticks - and have been - but finally it is a matter of personal preference. If you play many games on your computer you must buy a stick which feels correct for you. You may sit well back from the TV screen so you need to consider the length of lead you have with the joystick. It may vary from 3ft. to 8ft. depending on the model. The second consideration is if it will tolerate heavy treatment. Internally, switched joysticks have either pressure pads, leaf springs or micro-switches. Those with micro-switches are likely to last longest. Names and models to conjure with are Wico, which also makes joysticks for much-hammered arcade machines; Flight Electronics, which also makes joysticks for industrial use; and Spectravideo, whose Quickshot range is much-favoured, especially by manufacturers offering interface-with-joystick packages - for the Spectrum, of course. At least one company traces its fortunes directly from the lack of a Spectrum joystick port. JOYSTICK PORT Newcomers to the scene are the mercury-switched The Stick, the hand-shaped Konix Speedking, and the Cheetah cordless R.A.T. Not all makes and models will be available for all models of computer. There are pitfalls such as the auto-fire facility, designed to make shooting aliens easy but which can cause the fire button to stop working on some micros. If you want a joystick, the advice is to try it in a shop or buy one on the recommendation of a friend and be prepared to spend between £10 and £20. Two trackerball contenders are the analogue ball from Wigmore House, an import from the East selling for around £22, and the optical/digital Marconi RB2 ball at £59. From there the peripherals begin to become selective about the micro into which they are plugged. The analogue ball will run on the BBC and the Commodore 64. Do not expect any software with it, though it should run on any analogue joystick software without too much difficulty. The Marconi ball, available for the BBC, has its own software on cassette. There are utilities, so that the ball can be used not only from Basic but can also take over the use of cursor keys in word processor programs such as Wordwise and View, and a stand-alone drawing package, Paintball. For Master 128 owners, a supplied ROM ensures that the trackerball works automatically with the View family software. The advantage of trackerball over joystick is a matter of the degree of control. It is a precision-made item, a fact reflected in the prices, and the Marconi version compares well to certain of the rodents available. It is a realistic alternative to the more fashionable mice, if only because its size ensures a finer manipulation of the cursor. It is not dramatically cheaper, however, and the final choice, yet again, is a matter of user preference. There is something infinitely user-friendly about the name of the mouse which, after all, is just a glorified piece of plastic designed to take you from one part of the screen to the other in the shortest time. There is a definite art to calculating the distance your mouse travels vis a vis the results on-screen, and some users never manage to appreciate the discrepancy between hand movements and computer reaction. Nevertheless, mice are breeding and now Wigmore House is marketing a furry one, there could well be a population explosion which will render joysticks and trackerballs as obsolete as the Oric. It was AMS, of course, which pioneered the home-micro rodent by developing a mouse system for the 32K user-RAM/single-disc BBC. That resulted in the affordable Mousepaint and WIMP utility software packages which had hitherto been seen only on the Apple computers, Macintosh and Lisa. Software has always been an integral part of the appeal of a mouse and AMS has produced a great deal of it since the AMX Mouse nibbled its way into the BBC micro in January, 1985 with a sideways-ROM and paint-package at the then outstanding price of £90. Other manufacturers of mice have taken appropriate steps to follow the AMS lead and have, in some cases, made their mice AMX software-compatible. That may well prove advantageous for the user as there is every chance that a common standard for mouse hardware will be adopted based on the AMS three-button design. Atari, with its 520ST series computers, has anticipated the fact that one day all micros will be mouse-driven and has included a neat and well-made mouse, with WIMP software, in the price of its machines, leaving the older generation of micros - BBC, Commodore 64, Spectrum and Amstrad CPCs - to be served by peripheral manufacturers, whose wares are shown, as usual, in the buyers' guide table. Depending on which micro you own you may have little or no choice about which mouse/software package you can select. The Amstrad has only the AMS package, which was unfortunately not available for review at the time of writing, while the Spectrum fares a little better with the AMS package and a Kempston mouse. The Commodore has three mice and so has the BBC. Points to look for when mouse-buying are the physical construction of the unit and the availability of compatible software, The Kempston mouse for the Spectrum is typical of the breed, being a two-button rubber-coated ball device. As with most mice, the ball can be removed easily from its cavity, which is essential since all mice tend to collect fluff, biscuit crumbs and other foreign bodies; if they cannot be shaken-out, the operation of the mouse becomes erratic. BALL SLIDES The inner works reveal that no short cuts have been taken in its design. There are brass spindles, ball-race bearings and a sprung idler wheel. Two PCBs hold the opto-electronics, a few other small components and the two click-switches. A black box interface is needed on the Spectrum, since that micro lacks any ports of which a mouse could make use, but even with the extra hardware the mouse costs a reasonable £69.99, which includes the highly-successful OCP Art Studio software. The efficiency of the AMX mouse is hampered by its uncoated metal ball which tends to slide on many surfaces and that has attracted much criticism from the opposition. On the proper surface - a rubber-compound sheet is ideal - it is reliable. The AMX Mouse/SuperArt package costs around £75. SuperArt is one of a number of offerings from a company which constantly updates and improves its software. It is excellent if you buy after the packages have been field-tested but not so good if you have one of the early versions. AMS is helpful about upgrades and advice but detailed review is difficult, since an assessment of one version of a software offering may not be relevant to later issues. I consider PageMaker to be its best product, since you can use it for straightforward artwork as well as for its more widely-promoted magazine-making role. ANAMOUSE Nidd Valley entered the mouse stakes with devices for the BBC A, B and Master series computers. Anamouse is promoted as being "not just another mouse" but a "new concept in positive mouse control," which does not affect the results so far as the user is concerned to any noticeable degree. What is interesting about it, though, is that it plugs into the analogue port on the BBC, thus making it possible to have something else plugged into the user port. Digimouse, the second of its offerings, is an optical device which is in direct competition with the AMX and the Wigmore Megamouse. As such, it is highly competitive on price and will run AMS software. A large diameter rubber ball is set in its socket with no play whatsoever. That makes for a very stable mouse arrow on the screen but the hand pressure needed to move it is more than is needed for other mice. Digimouse has simple interface software on cassette and can run the large software offerings associated with AMS and Wig- more House. Versions of both Anamouse and Digimouse for the Spectrum 128, the Commodore micros and Amstrads are promised. Each mouse, which is extremely well-made, sells for £34.95. Then there is Megamouse for BBC and Commodore 64, the one and only furry rodent of this selection. It has a large felt pad on its underside on to which a square of Velcro can be fitted. PROTECTION That protects the rubber-coated ball when the mouse is not in use and is genuinely useful. The cost is around £63 but for that price you have a truly ergo-dynamically-designed peripheral which is a joy to use. The technically-minded may note that it has a heavy rubber-coated ball and a low centre of gravity. Software offerings accompanying the mouse are all opfional. Cadmouse is a drawing package with a slight slant to technical drawing - dimensions and centre line can be placed on engineering drawings and there is provision for 45-degree hatching - but the handbook is brief and at £29.90 it has not a great deal to commend it. Alternatively, the Mega-mouse/PearTree Artist package may be purchased for £99 excluding VAT. The Peartree Artist is a 16K ROM for the BBC and is an excellent colour-drawing package with animation facilities. For the serious user, it would undoubtedly be money well spent.

JOYSTICK There are two basic types of joystick, the switched (digital) variety and the analogue variety. The analogue type has two potentiometers inside it which convert the movements of the stick to a screen location. The switch type is much more akin to an aeroplane joystick - it gives directional information, rather than an absolute position. Push a digital joystick up and your space defender travels up-screen forever until you next move the joystick. Digital joysticks are inexpensive to manufacture and are ideal for computer games. PADDLES Really an analogue joystick in disguise. The name derives from the original TV-Tennis games. There, you will recall, the position of the player's bat was directly proportional to the twist given to the paddle. Why the paddle is called a paddle and not a racquet or bat is one of the best-kept secrets of the micro revolution. TRACKERBALL Effectively a low-geared joystick. It does not look anything like a joystick, of course; the user uses a finger or two to move the surface of a plastic ball, not a stick. The movement of the ball is geared down so that it needs a relatively large movement of the finger to move a small way on the screen. You lose speed of movement but gain accuracy. Trackerballs may be digital or analogue but in either case the output gives positional rather than directional information. Trackerballs need to be fairly substantial so that they stay still while you move the ball. MOUSE Take a trackerball, make it small because the intention is to move it, turn it over so it has something on which to move (the ball). and you have a mouse. That is the Darwinian theory of mouse evolution. Mice are usually digital devices. They have speed and accuracy. BITSTICK A precision analogue joystick which looks like a trackerball. Used for high-resolution drawing. It is available for the Apple and for second-processor BBC users. It is expensive. FOOTPRINT A measure of how much space the devices need to work successfully. Some joysticks are held in the hand and never touch the table. Their footprint is zero. The footprint of other devices is equal to their maximum width and depth and for the average joystick that is about 10 sq. in. The exceptions are the mice. Generally they run all over the table-top but how far they wander depends on their internal gearing. It is not uncommon to have to move a mouse some 24 inches to obtain a 4in. line on the screen.

Kempston £69.95 Kempston Micro Electronics, [redacted] AMX Mouse £46 Advanced Memory Systems Ltd, [redacted] Anamouse and Digimouse £34.95 Nidd Valley Micro Products, [redacted] Megamouse £69 [redacted] Dates Mouse - EEC £76 (Commodore 64 only). Magic Mouse - SMC £60 (Commodore 64 only). Bitstick 2 - Robocom £795 Robocom, [redacted] Trackerball - Marconi £69 Central Trade Exchange